Within the field of computing, many scenarios involve a computational architecture comprising an enclosure configured to provide power, from one or more power supplies connected to a power source, to a set of load units that apply a load to the provided power, such as computational processors, storage, or network routing. As a first example, a rack server may comprise a set of racks, each sized to hold a computational unit, such as a cased or caseless mainboard including a processor, memory, a power supply, and one or more storage devices, network adapters, and other expansion cards. The mainboard may include a power supply having a power inlet (usually positioned toward the back of the unit) that may be attached to a power outlet of the rack via a power cable, and a network port that may be attached to a network port of the rack using a network cable. As a second example, a blade server may comprise a set of slots, wherein a structural unit may comprise a set of parallel slots respectively configured to receive a computational unit of a “blade” form factor (e.g., a thin, substantially planar array of computational components). The enclosure may therefore store a horizontal or vertical stack of blades, each having an array of components, such as a processor, memory, a storage device, and a power supply, and may provide other services (such as power and network access) through cable attachments to various ports and outlets provided in the enclosure.
In these and other examples, the enclosure involves a distribution of power from the power supplies to the load units. A basic enclosure may simply connect each load unit with a dedicated power supply, but this architecture may cause any load unit to fail if the power supply fails, or if the power connection through the power supply is disconnected or otherwise interrupted. Other enclosures may distribute the power provided by two or more power supplies to the load units, e.g., by including a distribution grid that enables any power supply to be connected to any load unit, or a bus bar that provides a store of power from several power supplies to a set of load units. Some such enclosures may include a reserve power supply that may be (automatically or by user selection) connected with a load unit in place of a failed power supply, thus achieving “N+1” resilience of the power supplies within the enclosure.